This invention relates to digital rights display and methods and apparatus for determining reuse rights for content to which multiple licenses and subscriptions apply. Works, or “content”, created by an author is generally subject to legal restrictions on reuse. For example, most content is protected by copyright. In order to conform to copyright law, content users often obtain content reuse licenses. A content reuse license is actually a “bundle” of rights, including rights to present the content in different formats, rights to reproduce the content in different formats, rights to produce derivative works, etc. Thus, depending on a particular reuse, a specific license to that reuse may have to be obtained.
Many organizations use content for a variety of purposes, including research and knowledge work. These organizations obtain that content through many channels, including purchasing content directly from publishers and purchasing content via subscriptions from subscription resellers. Subscriptions generally include some reuse rights that are conveyed to the subscriber. A given subscription service will generally try to offer a standard set of rights across its subscriptions, but large customers will often negotiate with the service to purchase additional rights. Thus, reuse rights may vary from subscription to subscription and the reuse rights available for a particular subscription may vary even across publications within that subscription. In addition, the reuse rights conveyed in these subscriptions often overlap with other rights and licenses purchased from license clearinghouses, or from other sources.
Many knowledge workers attempt to determine which rights are available for particular content before using that content in order to avoid infringing legitimate rights of rightsholders. However, at present, determining what reuse rights an organization has for any given publication is a time-consuming, manual procedure, generally requiring a librarian or legal counsel to review in advance of the use, all license agreements obtained from content providers and purchased from other sources which may pertain to the content and its reuse. The difficulty of this determination means that sometimes an organization will overspend to purchase rights for which it already has paid. Alternatively, knowledge workers may run the risk of infringing a reuse right for which they believe that the organization has a license, but which, in actuality, the organization does not.